Together We'll Ring In The New Year
by CodependentCollision
Summary: Aubrey loves Beca and Chloe, but that doesn't mean being with them is easy. Triple Treble/ABC fic.


**A/N:** I have four prompts I said I'd fill. So, naturally, I wrote a triple treble/ABC fic no one asked for. Also this is more melancholy than I had intended. Sorry.

* * *

Aubrey's on her second bottle of champagne by the time she hears the key in the lock.

Chloe comes stumbling in first, her high heels in her hand. Her hair is a mess and her lipstick is smeared across the corner of her mouth. Beca follows behind her, a stupid grin on her face that lets Aubrey know she is good and drunk.

Beca notices her first. Her whole face lights up when she sees her.

"You're here," she says.

Aubrey feels conflicted.

She's happy to see them. It's been a long week at her parent's house. She feels tired and emotionally drained and she's missed them both so much. But, it's a new year and they seem to have rung it in just fine without her. Aubrey wonders how it's possible to feel like a third wheel when Chloe was hers first.

"I'm here," Aubrey says.

Beca crosses the room and kneels down on the carpet by Aubrey's feet. Her nails are blood red tonight. They stand out against the blue of Aubrey's jeans when she places her hand on Aubrey's knee.

"How's your dad?" she asks.

It's so like her. For all of Beca's sarcasm and defense mechanisms, she is sweet and considerate and always thinks to ask questions like that. Aubrey thinks that she probably never hates Aubrey the way Aubrey sometimes hates her.

"He's good," Aubrey says. "Nothing's really changed, but it was a good Christmas."

Beca looks over her shoulder at Chloe who shakes her head. Chloe looks sad, but she smiles at Aubrey when their eyes meet. No one says what they're all thinking. Aubrey doesn't want to think about a Christmas that doesn't include her father.

"That's good," Chloe says. "I hope you sent them our love."

"I did," Aubrey says. "They sent theirs back."

Everything goes quiet and awkward for a moment.

Aubrey can't stand it.

"Did you have fun at your party?" Aubrey asks.

She looks at Beca for the answer.

She nods as she reaches up and starts unbuttoning the top button of Aubrey's shirt. Aubrey stops her hands and sighs. She thinks maybe she shouldn't have come back tonight, but she'd wanted to be home. When she thinks of home this is the only place that ever comes to mind anymore.

"Chloe," Beca calls.

Chloe comes over and kneels on the couch next to Aubrey. She turns Aubrey's face up and kisses her. Beca goes back to Aubrey's buttons. Chloe only stops kissing her long enough for Beca to shove Aubrey's shirt off her shoulders.

"We're glad your home," Beca says.

Aubrey wants to believe that. It's hard acting like the friend, when in reality she is so much more. Just once she'd like to be the one who is kissed at midnight - to go out for dinner and drinks like she's part of a unit instead of someone along for the ride. She never expected this to be easy, but she realizes now that she also didn't think it would be this hard.

The night they'd asked her Beca had said, "Because we want you – both of us – if you think you might want us too."

Chloe had been the one to say, "We love you, Aubrey. We love you so much."

It had never even crossed Aubrey's mind to say no.

Now, Aubrey wonders what it would be like if she had said no, if she had let herself find her own kind of love instead of accepting theirs.

Thinking things like that hurts like thinking about her father hurts.

She doesn't want to lose them.

"I'm glad to be home," Aubrey says.

She leans down and kisses Beca's soft pink lips. Beca's hand is cool against her cheek - her wedding band colder still where the platinum touches her face. She grounds Aubrey - her mouth and her hand. She makes her feel like she's not alone.

It's strange - this bond they have - this fragile sort of love that started from a mutual love of someone else. It's made them allies where it would make other people enemies. There are times she is so jealous of what Beca has with Chloe that she thinks it might eat her alive. She knows Beca feels the same - the long months when Beca's on tour, when Chloe belongs mostly to Aubrey and Beca is left alone to miss them both.

Aubrey loves her so much.

One of her greatest fears is that Beca doesn't know it.

Aubrey's mother is always talking to Aubrey about the rewards of marriage.

How it's hard.

How it can be so, so worth it.

When it's just the three of them Aubrey can almost believe it.

Chloe squeezes Aubrey's hand. She's got glitter in her hair and her skirt is crooked and Beca's lipstick is smudged across the collar of her shirt.

Aubrey loves her more than anything. There's nothing she wouldn't do for her.

"Let's go to bed," Chloe says.

Aubrey grabs her own ring where it hangs suspended by a chain right above her chest. Sometimes it stings that she can't wear it on her finger like Chloe and Beca do, but there are always people watching them. There are always people asking questions they're not ready to answer. Aubrey tells herself it is better this way. She rubs her finger across the inside of the ring where their initials are inscribed side-by-side. She holds it close like she wants to hold the both of them close.

"I love you," Aubrey says.

She says it to the room.

She says it to Chloe and Beca in equal measure.

"Bree," Beca says. "I love you too."

It hits her. That she doesn't say we. That she speaks only for herself. That maybe, just maybe, it is not ChloeandBeca and Aubrey. That maybe they really are together in this. A unit. Tilll death do them part.

"I love you both," Chloe says.

Chloe squeezes Aubrey's hand again.

Beca says, "As sweet as this is, I've always preferred physical displays of affection."

It is so like Beca to take a serious moment and flip it on its head. Aubrey laughs, and it's like the last week shakes loose from where it's been lodged in her gut.

She feels freer than she has in a long time.

Aubrey picks up her half-empty bottle of champagne and holds it up to both of them.

"Happy New Year," she says.

"Happy New Year," they say, almost in unison.

Outside, there are fireworks still popping in the streets.

Inside, Aubrey passes the bottle of champagne to Beca and smiles against Chloe's lips as Chloe leans in to kiss her.


End file.
